Heather Wright/The Independent

Three giant domes near Courtright’s CF Industries could be the solution to Ontario’s power needs.

That’s according to Nick Didomenico of Originative Energy Solutions. It’s a partnership of five experts who have developed everything from natural gas power plants to wind farms.

But Didomenico says the group has turned to a solution from Italy which uses CO2 to store electricity.

The domes, similar to those used for sports fields, store about eight hours of electric energy using the gas.

Electricity is used to compress CO2 to a liquid which is stored at ambient temperature in a tank, and expands back into a gas (stored in a dome) which runs a turbine to produce electricity to be released when needed. Didomenico says the process is kind of like a soda stream with three 40 to 50 meter domes.

“People always ask, ‘Well, what does this thing look like?’ You’re used to seeing golf domes, sports domes – this is an elongated version of one of those structures.

“The big dome you see basically is what holds the gas when it’s in a gaseous state. You’ll have pressurized storage containers that hold the gas in the liquid state, and you’re just going through the proposed loop from gas to liquid, liquid to gas, gas to liquid. That’s what this is,” Didomenico told St. Clair Township council Monday.

The group is hoping to bid on the Independent Electricity System Operators next process in November. It will offer to store up to 125 megawatts of power at the site. And while the technology is new, Didomenico says it is proven.

“This is not a desktop experiment. This stuff exists. It started in Sardinia with a 25-megawatt plant. They’re rapidly expanding into the U.S. They have one procurement in Arizona, Texas, Wisconsin. There’s a plant being constructed in Ireland, so it’s the real deal.”

Didomenico says they have very specific needs for the plant, which they found in Courtright. “The site we’ve identified has a 230 volt transmission line, effectively right through the site, and it has ample capacity to accommodate the 125 positive lines we’re proposing. The other reason we’re here is we’re looking for industrial zone site. We don’t want to rezone the farmland,” he said.

“And you are a welcoming community, I’m assuming that. When I look at your crest, I see the smoke stacks. This is where large industrial activities take place.”

The plant would also be close to CF Industries which has CO2 as one of its waste products. Didomenico says it is possible CF will supply the CO2 for the project but adds it the domes will only need to be filled once in their lifetime, so it would be a limited partnership between the neighbours.

Councillors wanted to know if the plant would need a lot of water or create a lot of noise. Didomenico said it uses very little water and creates noise on site, however it would meet the provincial standards for off-site homes.

Didomenico wouldn’t give an exact cost of the Energy Dome saying it was north of $200 million to build the Courtright plant.

“We’ve got several hundreds of millions of dollars of construction at 125 megawatts. Construction jobs would be in the order of 250 to 300. Permanent jobs would be around a dozen. We would look to fill those locally.”

Originative Energy Solutions Partners, Didomenico added, is looking for the endorsement of St. Clair Township, something some councillors seemed eager to give Monday. Staff suggested it should wait until the company held a public meeting before giving the municipal seal of approval needed to file an IESO bid.

“Hopefully, we’re very successful, and I feel confident that, given the nature of the competition, the size of this procurement, the fact that this technology is one against other competing technologies in the U.S. that this technology is well positioned to be awarded in the coming procurement from the IESO,” he said.

If the company does get a contract, the project would take several years to build, Didomenico said.